"Commentary from P.M. Carpenter"

June 19, 2017

A tale of two Trump voters

At dinner last night I had an interesting and rather enlightening conversation with two Trump supporters. They no longer support him.

When I asked why, they responded, "Because he's, he's a, well, he's" — a buffoon? I offered. "Yes, that's it," they agreed, "he's a buffoon." Together we surveyed several areas of Trumpian buffoonishness, which I needn't resurvey here. You know them all. The point is, they had turned on their man from Manhattan, the barefoot boy from Wall Street (so to speak), as Harold Ickes of FDR's brain trust once called Wendell Willkie.

Now here is real progress, I thought. At random I've encountered two Trump voters who see him for what he is and has always been: a world-class buffoon, a charlatan, a fake and a fraud. Surely, I further thought, they would pledge to never again vote for this horror of a little man. And so I put it to them in what I believed was the grimmest of terms: "Were 2020 a rematch of the Trump-Clinton contest, which candidate would you vote for?"

They both instantly replied: "Oh, Trump, in a heartbeat."

The proffered reason for that inconsistency, as you might have guessed, was that though the Donald is a buffoon, Hillary is a bitch — a crooked bitch, married to a crooked son of a bitch. That I let pass, partly because of the true intensity of negative partisanship. Their strong dislike of Trump was overpowered by their absolute hatred of the Clintons.

What was truly intriguing, though, was another comment made by one of the Trump-dislikers: "What we really need is a politician who will try to bring both parties together." "Well that," I immediately countered, "was precisely what President Obama attempted." I noted that he hauled out a dusty old Heritage Foundation idea for health-care reform, once favored, of course, by Republicans. Yet not one among their party would support Obamacare. This historical observation was met with silence. Still, the force of centrism remains strong in these, the Trump-disaffected.

Though my tale is anecdotal, it nonetheless leaves hanging a question of broad validity. Given a centrist Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 (other than Hillary), might not these and other Trump-dislikers leave their party?

I suspect with reasonable certainty that Trump and his buffoonishness have already alienated what must be a sizable slice of his base. What are the odds of randomly encountering two disaffected Trump voters who are lonesomely disaffected? — a mere two voters now eager to agree that the man is indeed a buffoon? The odds, I should think, are exceedingly low; the numbers of the disaffected, pleasingly high. For Trump to have accomplished this in only five months is as rewarding as it is astounding.

The trick for Democrats in 2020 (and sooner)? Not to swing to the left — the Bernie left. Trump is setting up our political grounds for a seismic realignment, whose fault line sits, roughly, in the middle. That may not be where I sit, but I prefer winning over ideological preening. Here's to hoping that most Democrats prefer the same.

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A tale of two Trump voters

At dinner last night I had an interesting and rather enlightening conversation with two Trump supporters. They no longer support him.

When I asked why, they responded, "Because he's, he's a, well, he's" — a buffoon? I offered. "Yes, that's it," they agreed, "he's a buffoon." Together we surveyed several areas of Trumpian buffoonishness, which I needn't resurvey here. You know them all. The point is, they had turned on their man from Manhattan, the barefoot boy from Wall Street (so to speak), as Harold Ickes of FDR's brain trust once called Wendell Willkie.

Now here is real progress, I thought. At random I've encountered two Trump voters who see him for what he is and has always been: a world-class buffoon, a charlatan, a fake and a fraud. Surely, I further thought, they would pledge to never again vote for this horror of a little man. And so I put it to them in what I believed was the grimmest of terms: "Were 2020 a rematch of the Trump-Clinton contest, which candidate would you vote for?"

They both instantly replied: "Oh, Trump, in a heartbeat."

The proffered reason for that inconsistency, as you might have guessed, was that though the Donald is a buffoon, Hillary is a bitch — a crooked bitch, married to a crooked son of a bitch. That I let pass, partly because of the true intensity of negative partisanship. Their strong dislike of Trump was overpowered by their absolute hatred of the Clintons.

What was truly intriguing, though, was another comment made by one of the Trump-dislikers: "What we really need is a politician who will try to bring both parties together." "Well that," I immediately countered, "was precisely what President Obama attempted." I noted that he hauled out a dusty old Heritage Foundation idea for health-care reform, once favored, of course, by Republicans. Yet not one among their party would support Obamacare. This historical observation was met with silence. Still, the force of centrism remains strong in these, the Trump-disaffected.

Though my tale is anecdotal, it nonetheless leaves hanging a question of broad validity. Given a centrist Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 (other than Hillary), might not these and other Trump-dislikers leave their party?

I suspect with reasonable certainty that Trump and his buffoonishness have already alienated what must be a sizable slice of his base. What are the odds of randomly encountering two disaffected Trump voters who are lonesomely disaffected? — a mere two voters now eager to agree that the man is indeed a buffoon? The odds, I should think, are exceedingly low; the numbers of the disaffected, pleasingly high. For Trump to have accomplished this in only five months is as rewarding as it is astounding.

The trick for Democrats in 2020 (and sooner)? Not to swing to the left — the Bernie left. Trump is setting up our political grounds for a seismic realignment, whose fault line sits, roughly, in the middle. That may not be where I sit, but I prefer winning over ideological preening. Here's to hoping that most Democrats prefer the same.